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A rebuttal to Glen Sorestad

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Lorne Kazmir, a dedicated reader of this blog, would like to offer his thoughts on Glen Sorestad’s latest Rider Report (which was posted here Monday). Over to you, Lorne …

With morning java in hand, mindlessly reading Glen Sorestad’s March 25th blog, my head nodded rhythmically, partially due to boredom/fatigue, as the blog contained nothing new, but mostly I nodded in agreement.

A rebuttal to Glen SorestadBack to video

Finally, his last paragraph, and I snapped to attention, rubbed my eyes in disbelief, and reread. The usually astute Mr. Sorestad spits out one faux pas after another, until my formerly sedate disposition is transformed into a slow burn and boil.

His last paragraph starts with a head-scratching, irony-laden, question:” When is this team going to go out and recruit a young middle linebacker of the future?” The answer is in the question. It takes time for a player to grow into this important position. So, indeed, such a young recruit would be “of the future,” ergo, it begs the question: how do they fill this position in the interim. According to Mr. Sorestad: “this practice – and it seems to have become a convenient practice – of picking up other teams’ cast-offs and re-treads for our key defensive position is certainly not the way you create a football dynasty.” Are we to conclude that it would be better to have a mediocre, spelled inexperienced, MLB while the team suffers from growing pains in the interim?

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Immediately following, Mr. Sorestad completes his crash and burn with: ” Simpson, then Lobendahn, and now Williams. This strikes me as more akin to the old Steinbrenner Yankees of baseball tradition who used money outrageously to build a team of all-stars, year after year. The Riders own the biggest bank account in the CFL and it’s growing faster than anyone else’s. Would it be too much to expect that some of that bulging account be spent on recruiting a 23 to 25 year old MLB who will be with us for a decade?”

Say what?

It has been a long-standing practice in the sports world to fill holes with trades, or free agents, if draft picks don’t turn out. Furthermore, how does the Riders’ healthy bank account relate to recruiting? The CFL has a salary cap, so they can’t just lure a recruit with greenbacks, and their recruiting system is on par, or superior, to other CFL teams.

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Finally, comparing a CFL team, with a salary cap of four and half million, to the old Steinbrenner Yankees (who could have spilled more than that at a team party) is unconscionable! Lest we forget the telethons just to keep the lights turned on.

The current Riders are putting the puzzle pieces together in a laudable way, to win sooner than later, given this year’s Grey Cup location is Regina. Their current off-season recruiting is superior to any year I can remember in the last half century. Still, unbelievably, detractors abound. When will they ever learn? Or, in the alternative, just acknowledge that football guys like coach Chamblin just might know more about building a team?

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